Sunday, February 04, 2007

Experiencing TV Production.

Sorry for not having any doodles lately, but I rather have my thought right now.

So I started animating at work. It's quite simple character for kids (nealy primitive if I could say), each episodes run about 1 min, my buddy made a model and rig, I'm taking care of animation but I also have to do rendering as well. So given time for me, which is 3 weeks by now, is not quite enough to get my satisfaction. I was used to spend 3 weeks to finish 300 frames for class. Guess how many time I got here for my first 350 frames. It was 2 days. That sounds more like insane actually, but that's exactly what is happening to me right now.

There's one thing that school never taught us, Efficiency. When I was taking Pixar class at the Academy, the whole environment was so ideal, just so ideal. We got 3 weeks for 300 frames, getting great critiques from teachers, spend some time critique each other and discuss about animation all day long with my friends. I guess not every production has such an ideal environment while they are having multiple projects going at the same time.

Plus, a quality that client expects us to achive is quite low I say. It may not be for all TV production but maybe because I'm working at Japanese production. Sadly but it's true that Japanese 3d animation is poorly executed over the years. I was surprised at the fact that some of supervisor laughing at the importance of Illusion of Life. man.... Japanese should honor the fact that we *do* have great talented animators in 2d production tho.

I would consider myself as lucky just because I still can have fun animating character for kids (well, I like cutie fluffy thingie more than dragons and warriors and stuff). In fact that's really great thing that I can make money by doing what I really want to do, u know.

If some of you found my experience interesting, cool that means I didn't waste my time writing some thoughts on my blog. I would write more of my experiences if my time allows.

I saw some of movies btw, Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums, Nacho Libre. Man, Rushmore is such an incredible piece of work. I saw Royal Tenens first, and kinda hooked, not strongly tho. Then Rushmore, it's already been added to my list of the movies that I think I'm happy to see before I die.

9 comments:

Rico said...

Atsushi,

Very intersting... two days. I guess we had the time to animate in school. But at least we had time to understand the principles and digest it in 3 weeks for each assignment. Now we can apply as much of it in 2 days, sad as it may be. I'm happy your animating, and still like to see what you've been animating if you can.

Rushmore... it is a permanent dvd in my library. Great movie.

Anonymous said...

確かに、日本は2Dのアニメーションは、それなりに歴史もあって、かなり「イケ」てますが、3Dアニメーショーンの場合、アニメーターがやってない、というところに問題があると思います。

僕が、日本で専門学校に行った感想と、いくつかの企業に面接に行ってみて、一人が、すべてやる、いわゆるジェネラリストを求めている傾向にあります。

だから、アニメーションの勉強、特にアニメーターに必要な、観察力や洞察力などは、特に勉強せず、コンピューターの技術ばかりに走る傾向にあると思います。本当の核心に迫る、芸術の部分がかけてるんですね。日本の優秀なアニメーター、もしくはアニメーションを勉強する人が、3Dではなく、2Dに行く傾向にもあるかもしれません。

えらそうなことを長々と書きましたが、僕も、まだまだ学ぶべきことが盛りだくさんです。。

Atsushi said...

thanks for you guys having such a lightning reply :D

Rico,
yea, thats crazy as it sounds like. i heard some situation in tv production at states is quite similar, but my friend working there got far more better result with same time restriction. i dunno what it is.
no worries, i will send an email to my gangs when im done the animation.

Yucrunk,
yo, well, i started this blog mainly for my school gangs. probably you are the only one japanese reader of this blog now, then why dont you reply me a comments in english so nobody has to take a guess what the heck are we talking with exotic characters. i know you are good at it.

well, thats been said. theres genelarist in every country, not only in Japan. small production prefers em coz they wont eat up their money when animation dept is waiting for the characters to be rigged up, then this proves the other fact that jap 3d production (in terms of animation) is not matured (yet). but first thing that we should have here in japan is more healthy and stable environment to work imho. so that not too many generalist will do a freelance job just sake of quick money. yea environment something like we can focus on more of style and quality. i know some ppl is working on it. my company's CEO is doing some serious job on that. it probablly need some time, maybe some decades.

Tomo said...

Atsushi,

There is another japanese reader here. You are really experiencing the Japanese production, which I think is good for you. You have to appreciate it and see what works and what doesn't for you. That experience would really help you keep motivated to pursuit what you really want to do.
Keep us posted. I wish you best luck.

Tomo

Atsushi said...

oops, so there might be 2 or more japanese readers here :D

jesukiran said...

Wow,Wonderful blog. awesome works here...glad to find your blog today

Atsushi said...

thank you. too bad i got no time to update.

Samuel Silva said...

Wonderful blog.Super cool.

Atsushi said...

Thank you! Check back later for more updates!